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In the past couple weeks we’ve received a number of questions about the Diagnostics by Design (DxD) hackathon on January 11th and 12th of 2014, so here’s a bit of clarification for what exactly we’re doing and what’s going on!

What is DxD?

Diagnostics by Design (DxD) is a new effort based on a collaboration between the Point of Care Diagnostics Idea Lab, the Henry Wheeler Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases, and Tekla Labs. The Workshop is happening on January 9th, 2014 (Thursday), and the Hackathon is on January 11th and 12th (Saturday and Sunday). January 10th will be the 6th Annual CEND Symposium, which is a fantastic, free way to get to listen to world-class speakers on pressing issues of global health. The point of the hackathon event is to try and get Makers who are interested in making a different with their efforts to meet with Professionals in the sphere of global health and field diagnostics and get them to share their knowledge with each other over a nice cup of coffee and some sawdust and maybe the hum of the laser cutter going in the background.

What exactly will we be doing?

You will be working in teams of ~6 people (teams will be organized on the first day of the event unless you email us with particular requests for matching) to prototype some improvement on an existing piece of laboratory or diagnostic equipment, or build a new one from scratch. The event will take place in the CITRIS Invention Lab, which is a UC Berkeley workshop with plenty of soldering equipment, tools, fancy toys and the like. You will be given a starter kit of materials (components tbd, but feel free to email if you want to make a special request beforehand) and a small budget with which to buy additional materials from the staff at the Invention Lab or from the local hardware store. You are given free reign on what to build or how to build it, so long as you keep in mind the three judging criteria: “Serviceable, Simple, Safe.” This means your design should built in a way that shows you considered 1. Making it work. 2. Preventing needless complexity. 3. Keeping it safe. We just want to see you keep those ideas in mind, because they’re highly important to the design process.

Who is invited?

Can you program an Aruduino in your sleep but don’t know the first thing about how to culture malaria? Can you diagnose tuberculosis under a microscope faster than you can say its name, but don’t have a microscope to do it with? Are you neither of those, but you care enough about either or both enough to come and learn about it? If you said yes to any of the above, come on down! If you said no to all of the above, come on down anyway! We still have plenty of room for volunteers and additional registrants. If you have any food allergies or dietary requirements and plan to attend the hackathon, please email the coordinators.

What do we get for doing this?

All teams will submit their final prototypes on Sunday before lunch, and during the meal the entries will be judged. Winners will receive some sort of prize (TBD, most likely Amazon gift cards!) for their hard work and their attendance!

What is this registration fee for?

To make sure that people who are interested in coming actually show up! We’re providing four meals and a lot of materials, so we want to make sure attendance is up to snuff! If the registration fee poses a financial hardship to you, please email us and we will work to make appropriate accommodations.

How do I get in contact with you?

With the event coming up soon, you can email the hackathon organizer Michael Kang (mskang[at]berkeley[dot]edu) for quick and prompt responses. The rest of the time, our contact information is in the Home > Contact tab.

If I have any more questions?

Use the email address above to get in contact with the organizer directly! This FAQ will be updated as more questions come in.

Hear about Tekla Labs and other efforts in citizen science on Wednesday, November 20 from 1-5 PM EST. If you happen to live in DC, you can attend in person - more practically may be to view the live stream or follow the event on twitter, @STIPCommonsLab and #CirSci! Learn more here and make sure to check out the other great work from the Commons Lab at the Woodrow Wilson international Center for Scholars.

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the Tekla Labs Social Entrepreneurship Symposium (or who want to see it again!), you can check out video of all the talks on our Vimeo page. Special thanks to all of our speakers for sharing their experiences and ideas; we hope you all feel as inspired by them as we do!

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